artmastertilt

The Roots: Undun (wasn't all that enthusiastic about it on my first listen but now I think it is a work of genius) The Black Keys: El Camino (Love at first listen...I don't think Danger Mouse has produced anything I haven't thought was amazing) Black Joe Lewis: Scandalous (I was shocked when I saw him live and realized how young he was...He's got a voice that sounds like he's been around forever...worthwhile checking out) Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings: Soul Time (What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes is my favourite song of the year) Lou Reed and Metallica: Lulu (just kidding...it's a big flaming turd...it amazes me that anyone would actually release it...I actually thought it was a joke the first time I heard the single...sometimes when a major label artist gets total artistic freedom they produce Sgt. Peppers...not this time...) Primus: Green Naugahyde (at first I dismissed this one because it was too similar to Fizzle Fry...it was only after I saw them perform it live that I gave it a second listen and I'm glad I did) TV On The Radio: Nine Types Of Light (It amazes me that they just keep producing amazing work...it's got to stop at some point, right?...Perhaps, but not yet...) Tom Waits: Bad As Me (see above) Nguyen Le: Songs Of Freedom (an album of covers by Vietnamese guitar god Nguyen Le...Check out his Hendrix tribute called Purple too) William Shatner: Seeking Major Tom (I don't really think this is half as good as Has Been, the album he did with Ben Folds, but I'm amazed the guy is still going with as much energy as he does at the age of 80...I'm half his age and I don't think I'd be able to keep up with him)

Buy the TTB shirt with the funky lettering and the fake weathering...It'll make you look ten years younger and ten pounds thinner and also it will make rainy days turn to sunshine...

I'm listening to the gentle ringing of tinnitus...

Yeah... I didn't shoot any video any of the Glover stuff...In retrospect, I wish I had gotten a bit of footage of Mr. Glover just because I have a difficult time explaining his look to people... I was kind of hoping he'd pull out the old multi-coloured braided extensions from the Cult of Personality days... He could definitely sing though...Amazing range... I don't know if he was the best fit for the band but good on them for trying something different...Their sound was a lot harder edged with him than with Cyril Neville on the mic... In contrast, 50 Cent....errr...I mean Corey on trombone meshed a little better the band... Heavyweights Brass Band was a great surprise...I really enjoyed their set...I look forward to seeing more of those guys down the road...

Same night as Reggie Watts...This has caused much conflict in our household...Myself being a Galactic man and my fiance being of the Watts persuasion... Don't know how this one's going to play out... Apparently, the last few shows we've seen together have been my choice and it's her turn... But I got bored with Reggie after the second youtube clip I saw... I don't HATE Reggie...But if I have to miss Galactic because of him, that might change... Dude's not all that great a beatboxer and not all that funny...Nice fro though...

Gone.

Unfortunately, we can't make it to Tuesday night's sold out Rush show at Copps in Hamilton... 22nd row floors, seats 31 and 32 Paid $199 including S/C....Asking $175 j.chris.beynon(at)gmail(dot)com

We can work something out...Email me the deets at the gmail address and we'll go from there

Thanks!

I'm doing five free gig poster designs...Take 'em while you can get 'em...The only stipulation is there has to be a horn section in the featured band...The design isn't necessarily going to be horn-related, I just want to support bands that bring the brass...Five business day (or less) turnaround...contact me at j.chris.beynon(at)gmail(dot)com A few examples of work I've done in the last month or so: here and here and here and here and here and here

Lotus was great...Sound was decent and they made effective use of their lights...Nice to see an electronic band that isn't playing to a tape for a change...Their replacement drummer isn't quite as good a fit with the ensemble as the original guy (his snare sound felt inappropriate somehow)...The emphasis was on creating nice grooves over long wanking solos which can be rare for an instrumental band... Chameleon Project performed before all of about 20 people for the bulk of their set and seemed unmotivated...Not sure why they needed the guy on kit since the guy who was programming beats was doing most of the heavy lifting...They could have used someone else either on keys or guitar to fill out their sound...Maybe my experience with these guys might have improved if I'd taken a pill or a capsule or something...

Soundboard recording is great...They edited out the spot where they accidentally called us Vancouver instead of Toronto...

i LOVE that they don't use laptops... if i wanted to watch a guy sitting in front of a laptop, i'd go down the street to starbucks... looking forward to their show tonite...been listening to their live stuff for a while now and i'm stoked that i'm finally going to get to see them...

My favourite albums I discovered in 2009 but that were released earlier: --Fort Knox Five: Radio Free DC --Adrian Quesada & Ocote Soul Sounds: The Alchemist Manifesto --Afrika Bambaataa: Dark Matter Moving at the Speed of Light --Herbie Hancock: Future 2 Future --Nguyen Le: Purple --Phuse: Mingus Lingers --Bombay Dub Orchestra: 3 Cities --Miles Davis: Another Unity --The Baker Brothers: Transition Transmission

I'm going to have to learn to not judge a book by its cover....this is one of my favourite albums of the year but I almost passed it by because of the sort of hokey cover image...

Ocole Soul Sounds was the opening act...LOVED their set...The band is a side project by members of Antibalas (my favourite band of the 2007 Toronto Jazz Festival) and Grupo Fantasma (my favourite act at Hillside this year)...Would def. go see them again in a heartbeat... This was, more or less, the same show that Thievery Corporation did in February...They got a new little punk rock bass player, the LED panels that were blocking half the audience's view of the percussionists were left on the truck, the sound wasn't quite as good and the horn section's hair got a little longer...It felt a little stale to me, but if you haven't seen them before it'd be worthwhile...

On Friday night, after participating in the Organic Groove drum circle at the drum and dance tent and seeing Xavier Rudd on the main stage, I ate a chicken on a pita from that vendor who had those two big piles of red crap that was mostly onions on his grill...I had to stop three times on the bikeride home to kitchener to throw up in the ditch... Lesson learned: Never buy food from a vendor with no lineup... As a result, i missed much of Saturday due to further digestive complications that will be better left untyped... I did manage to drag my sorry ass back to Guelph for Grupo Fantasma on Saturday night...As I arrived, the people at the bike check were bugging me for arriving so late in the day but, upon hearing that tight horn section, I knew I had arrived just in time...Their conga guy was pretty much as good as it gets and the percussion section as a whole was solid...Great band...Totally worth riding 30km each way to see... After participating in the drum circle around the campfire in the volunteer area for awhile, I headed home to nurse my bruised colon... Sunday, I ended up turning back on my ride over to Guelph due to lightning (in the countryside, riding a bike is like riding a lightning rod)...

We use Primus... Les Claypool runs a darn fine ISP... Free North American long distance as well...

Well....i'll be going back and forth between kitchener and guelph six or seven times between thursday and sunday if anyone's interested... It's only a third of the distance of the Tour de Grand ride that Schwa did last fall so I don't know what he's crying about...

How's this for an ironic twist: Less than two hours after my previous post about bike lights, someone ripped off my headlight from my bike while I was in the bank... Unfortunately, I now will be using my extra headlight for myself so I won't be able to loan it out...

My bike has a better lightshow than the main stage at Hillside....Not an issue.... Actually, I have extras if anyone out there needs to borrow some for the weekend....

I'll be riding my bicycle back and forth between Kitchener and Guelph Lake four or five times over the course of the Hillside weekend (SOMEone has to let the dog out to pee)... If anyone out there is going to Hillside from Kitchener and is interested in shrinking their carbon footprint a bit, I'm looking for people to ride with...

If the ipod has been wiped clean but it is now working properly, though it's a drag you've lost the content on there, you can be happy that you have a working ipod that is ready to receive new music...You probably still have all the mp3 files on the computer you synced the ipod to so it shouldn't be a big deal to transfer it back to the ipod again... If you're still having power issues as well as the loss of all your files, you might be looking at replacing it... I would try syncing the ipod in iTunes...Sometimes that will fix your problems...If iTunes won't sync with your ipod, it's probably indicative of a bigger problem which most likely won't be repairable...

Is the backlight set to always be on?...If it is, your battery will run through its charge a lot faster...Try setting it to turn off after 10 seconds...you can do this by going to Settings in the main menu then select Backlight... Failing that, if it's a software problem, you can always reset your ipod to it's original factory settings via iTunes... You could try replacing the battery...Apple has a replacement program but after you factor in all the costs of the replacement program and the fact that there's no guarantee that replacing the battery will solve your problem, you may just be better off getting a new ipod...Or switching to cassettes and getting an old Walkman...Or just humming to yourself...